Bishop Bart Pierce Ready to Pass the Torch

“How do you manage church when God shows up?” Asks Bishop Bart Pierce, “Nobody had that in any books that I read in, in Bible school. What do you do if God shows up? You give him the church.”

Bishop Bart Pierce has pastored Rock City Church in Baltimore with his wife Coralee by his side since 1983. He was sent to the then failing church to close its doors, but instead, it became part of a great move of God.  Bart’s personal story of faith began, as a troubled youth, caught up in the world of drugs. Bart says, “My mother died when I was nine. went in and kissed her goodnight. And next morning she was dead. She died of blood poison… And that shook my boat. And, uh, from that point on, when I went back to school, I was in fights… And I started doing drugs. And I was smoking pot. And then it went on to cocaine, and then it went on to all kinds of drugs from LSD and all the psychedelics and so… then I got involved in a dealer, and I was dealing drugs all over the United States…heavy, heavy, heavy stuff. People getting shot, people getting killed.”

While running from the law and hiding from cartel hitmen, one Sunday morning Bart joined Coralee visiting the rock church in Virginia Beach.  “And went into the church.” Says Bart, “I had drugs in both pockets. I had hash and marijuana packed up in my pockets. And I walked in the church. And that day, uh, John Jimenez was up there and he was a former drug dealer, drug addict, he really could relate to me. And hippies were getting saved by the hundreds.  I cried and said, Lord, if you're real, you gotta do something. You gotta show me that you're real. And I heard a voice. And I don't know if I heard it in my head my heart where I heard it. I got up and this little woman came up and she said to me, ‘young man, you heard the voice of God, didn't you?’ And I said, ‘ma'am, I don't have a clue what you're talking about. I heard something.’ She said, ‘tell me what you heard.’ I said, ‘well, I heard this. I'll never leave you. Um, I'll never forsake you.’ That day changed my life. Drugs stopped. I threw the drugs out the window, driving home.

Bart gave his life to Christ and began being mentored John Gimenez the pastor of Rock Church. Bart says, “I traveled with him all over the world, um, from London to, India, to in between. And, um, that was my role. So that attached me to him. He talked to me while we were flying and while we were at hotels, while I had my own personal mentor… but that kind of experience of one-on-one mentoring, transform my life.”

In august 1983 he was sent to a struggling congregation of under 30 people in Baltimore. “And my whole point of coming up here was to shut it down.” Bart recalls, “I wanted to be careful with the people and explain. So I agreed to preach Sunday morning, Sunday night, Sunday night. I intended to, to bring that to the real core group and say, we're gonna shut the church down. Y'all need to all go back to other churches and find a new place to go. And I'm speaking in the word and the word just leaped up. And I start prophesying this church. This is going to be a church that people come from all over the world. There'll be one hill, then another hill, then another hill. And I'll build multiple times, sayeth the Lord. And you're going to see the nations. This will be called a nation all church. And this thing is rolling. And I'm saying in my head, while it's coming out, I'm saying, what am I doing? This is nuts. I'm here killing this thing. And, and God, you're saying it's going to go alive.”

Bart was then asked to stay and pastor the struggling church. With his wife and young family, he moved to Baltimore, unsure of the future but trusting in God’s leading.  He says, “And here I am with a church that would hold 500, put up a hundred chairs with about 25, 30 people. And I thought, this is so dumb that Sunday morning, every chair was filled. And I thought, okay, maybe this is what you do. I'm a new preacher, I don't know what I'm, maybe this is what you do. So you build it and they'll come buy chairs and they'll come. So I bought another a hundred chairs, put 'em in there. By February the next year. So that's five months. We had nowhere to sit. We actually put the children up around the steps to give more room for the adults. And in just short time, we grew so much that it was ridiculous. And I built a gym, a school for 250 kids. And we went in the gym. And the same thing happened again.”

The church began to thrive and make an impact on the surrounding community. Then in 1997 Heaven broke out with an outpouring of God’s spirit that left a mark on Baltimore and the world. Bart says, “1997, we had an outpouring of God where a guy named Tommy Tinney came for three and a half years. And people came from all over the world, and it went on from Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. there were so many people on the floor under the pews. You'd see hard hats, you'd see boots, trucks were lined up on the beltway. And it was a prayer, a meeting that went on day and night of repentance. The power of God was so strong. Wheel chairs empty. People came in, no one prayed for 'em. They'd walk in 25, 30 years crippled. And the power of God would follow them. And they were absolutely undone. They'd get up, walk around the building and the building was that way from that morning till about one or two in the morning and they came not only to get that touch, but take it back. It was transferrable so they could get something and go back with it and repentance is the key that opens the door to come back to God. When you, when you get saved, you repent. That's the first thing you do. If you will repent and, ask God to forgive your sins, favor comes. His presence comes, joy comes, restoration comes. Repentance is the keyway to get you into the presence of God's favor and his purpose. And it's prayer that moves things that changes things. And been a part of that. That's what this church is. This is a praying church. And we have to learn how to entertain the presence of God again. And it is really important for us to know that we learned how to entertain the presence of God and minister to an audience of one. where God's been. He'll come again because he's attracted to his own presence.  If we turn our churches back towards welcoming God, he'll come. He wants to come. He wants to come and have church with us.

Under Bart’s leadership rock city church continues to make an impact. Their home for girls has provided housing and life skills for thousands of girls who needed care during their pregnancies. Over 14,000 men have turned their lives around through their men’s home. And for the past 22 years they have given away a home each year to a family in need. They also help feed ten percent of Baltimore through their food distribution program. Bart says, “We have 163 churches around the world that we planted and that we're a part of that connect to us, we have a bible school. We have students coming from all over. We have school students from Madagascar, Ghana, Africa. And we do a program for kids in the summer. Kids come in from everywhere. All of these things happen so that the kingdom of God is advanced in our area, but it's all through the local church. This is important for me. What we do through a local church is transformational.

After over four decades in ministry, Bishop Bart is ready to experience a transformation of his own. In November, he is preparing to hand over the pastoral leadership at rock city to Jim Kilmartin who has been mentored by Bart for several years.  Bart says, “I've been able to pour into him and his wife. We've traveled together, they've come to my home in The Bahamas. I go to his church, preach. I've helped him set up his guy who's taking his church. And November this year he, and on Sunday night the third, at seven o'clock, he will actually be set in and I will pass the mantle for him to take Rock City Church as the pastor of that church.”

Bart will continue to mentor pastor Jim and run the social ministries of Rock City Church. Coralee and Bart reflect on the goodness of God and a life well lived. Coralee says, “Got no questions and no regrets, he's been so good to us. We are been blessed beyond measure. we both got saved the same day, in Virginia Beach, however, 40 years ago or whatever it was, is it 50? And, I mean, we never looked back. You know, we, we said yes to God we were just so happy to be out of where we were and the drugs and all the stuff we were doing. And we just did an about face, and we just started running after God. And we never have ever stopped.”

Bart says, “In it all. We stayed saved in it all. We stayed hungrier for God than we've ever been. And you can do all this and not get burnout. I don't believe in burnout. Burnout is 'cause you, you put the candle out. my hope is that I do my part, finish my race, and then be able to have Him say, ‘Come, Well done.’ Coralee says, “It'd be good to have a well done.”

Bart continues, “The church legacy is just the grace of God, I should not be allowed, but God, what he did for me is hard to put it into all the right words. Sorry, I don't wanna leave anything here. I want to die empty. So my goal, my heart, is to have people say he loved God, feared God, loved his family, and, loved humanity.